Steven Stamkos, NHL’s star of the month
Tampa Bay Lightening is currently one of the strongest teams in the league. From the 10 games that the team has played so far this season, they extracted 7 wins. Their offense has scored 35 goals since the season began and Steven Stamkos has been an important
part of that offense. The 20 year old centre for the Tampa Bay Lightening has gathered 19 points in this season so far. He has scored 9 goals and assisted in another 10 goals. His 19 points put him on top of the league.
On Tuesday Stamkos was named the first start of the month for October. Stamkos has scored the winning goal for the Lightning twice this season and in 5 of his ten games, he gathered more than one point in a game. This October Stamkos scored his second career
hat trick. He is the front and centre of the Lightning offense and it is in great part due to his tremendous contributions that Tampa Bay ranks seconds in the NHL after 10 games.
Stamkos stands a full three points ahead of second place point scorer in the league, Chris Stewart who also has scored 9 goals but made just 7 assists. The Young Stamkos is undoubtedly one of the most talented players in the league and the hard work that
he put into the game made him the player that he is today.
When Stamkos first started playing hockey, the appropriate word to describe him would have to be ‘clumsy’. He could skate well but struggled to control the stick and the puck. Stamkos said that he couldn’t get the puck off the ice and his relatively smaller
build as a young player hampered him. In time Stamkos would grow to be a 6’1, 188 lb adult and hard with hard work he would improve his control over the puck.
He entered a training program and learned the right techniques to improve his shots. “You don’t have to be the biggest guy to have the hardest shot,” Stamkos said as he compared shooting the puck to swinging a golf club or a tennis racquet. He said that
he learned early on that technique was the most important thing and so he practiced intensely to get his technique right. Those lessons that he learned as a young player have served him well in the National Hockey League. He shoots like a pro and is one of
the most effective forwards in the league at present.
His skills have served Tampa Bay very well. He scored his 9 goals in 7 games and those were seven games that Tampa Bay won. Tampa Bay lost all the games in which Stamkos was unable to score in, one of those games was a shutout against the Florida Panthers.
The Panthers scored 6 goals while their goaltender blocked 29 shots on goal.
Excluding this season, in his career Stamkos has played 161 NHL games, all for Tampa Bay Lightning, and scored 74 goals. He has also made 67 assists for a total of 141 points. Last season he scored 51 goals and if he continues to play like he has been playing
this season, we could be looking at a 60+ goal season. Stamkos could maybe even hit the 70 goal mark. He has shown no signs of slowing down, yet, and is definitely one of the players to watch out for this season.
Not all agree though that Stamkos should have been named the first start for October. It came down to Stamkos and Boston Bruins goaltender, Tim Thomas, for the title and it was very close. The goalie allowed just 3 goals in the six games he played in October.
The NHL has been faced with a scoring drought and the difference in points between Stamkos, the league leader, and runner up Chris Stewart is a testimony to that fact. So the league named Tim Thomas the second star and Chris Stewart the third star of the month.
Tags: